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May 04, 2012

Should you take your child to see "The Avengers"? Lil E has been talking about this movie like crazy. And his fire is further fueled by the Lego Club magazine cover with "Avenger guyyyyys". If only the move was PG-7-1/2. Kristen at Rage Against the Minivan says the "13" didn't keep her from taking her boy (who is E's age) and from giving it a thumbs-up. Read on for her super-thorough, super-trustworthy superhero review.

Did you love Eat, Pray, Love? It really doesn't matter whether you soaked up every word, as I did, or thought it was oversold and..and...whatever made you hate a lady talking about eating loads of pasta and learning to love sex. No matter. Elizabeth Gilbert's TED talk on a new-old way of thinking of creativity that is nourishing rather than self-destructing is completely engaging and inspiring and wonderful. Even if you didn't make it past chapter one of any of her books, this 20 minutes is worth your time. I swear on the last plate of bolognese I inhaled.

Did the Beastie Boys play on every decade of your life soundtrack? We say a sad farewell to Adam Yauch, MCA from BB, who ended his battle with cancer today. I am holding on to the memory of "Girls" playing over and over during the hours-long bus ride for my eighth-grade trip to Washington, D.C. That was back in the days of pressing play-stop-rewind-play. That's a long shared history. I think it's time to hit repeat on some of the classics for Lil E.

Here's how I'll make the appeal to the kid. (Legos + Beastie Boys?! Come. On. Genius.)

April 21, 2012

I won't even pretend that this weekend is going to be cushy with time to sit around and ponder Rumi or even make it through one (as my grandmother used to say) gol-dang chapter of the book I loved for the first 243 pages and am really struggling through paragraph by paragraph just trying to make it to the last word. I imagine you relate. So why I don't I just tell you what I loved on our old friend the internets this week, so you won't have to have any of your own reading trials and tribulations? Good. Done.

A note on friendship - Whit Honea is not only a fabulous writer, he's a hilarious texter who will get you in all kinds of trouble during solemn Oprah-revering moments at blog conferences and can kill it in Drawsome with scribbled pictures of sharks devouring bloody stick figures. So why wouldn't he write one of the best blog posts of all time on children's friendship break-ups and apologies? It's wonderful.

Olympian, working mother, feminist hero -- Pat Summit is one of basketball's most legendary coaches. MamaPundit's Katie Granju writes that you don't have to be a fan of the game to idolize her, and I get that. I'm a non-sports fan who loves a great sports stor. Read every word of this as I did and you'll see, this incredible woman has one.

Not another mommy war -- I am so proud of my friend Joanne Bamberger. Not only is she whip-smart, CNN and a gazillion other people know it. Check out her assessment of this whole crazy business with Ann Romney, Hilary Rosen and every person in the world who loves to fluff up a nonexistant war between womenfolk.

Is it time for a financial tune-up? -- Duh, yes. Meagan Francis gets honest about money money money at The Happiest Mom and I was even inspired to wait on hold with the freaking insurance people for 32 minutes to get my own stuffs in order. Not lying.

A chord of sad -- In only a few days, Joy Unexpected's Yvonne will say goodbye to her military-enlisted son. I can't even imagine. Read this and make sure a flood of loving thoughts fill her living room while he's still playing his guitar in it and after they've said their farewells.

And now some music to fill up your own busy, over-scheduled, too-talkative spaces. I'm totally digging this band. Did you laugh out loud reading this bit in Jezebel about "Somebody That I Used to Know lyrics seeming to be like a really crappy email from a duder you once dated? This cover will make it all better. I promise. It's a lovely guitar-fingering orgy of goodness and light. Plus, I love that the stare-y guy looks so much like Trent Reznor and maybe that's Robin Williams on the end.

Then "Someone Like You" in a non-American Idol cover version. And that smokin' hot blond lady at the center is really making me give some thought to my hairdresser's plan to make me go totally blonde as her summer project. Too much to process? Just listen then.

March 23, 2012

I'm usually the bossy one around here. But it's the weekend and I've decided to let these four smartypants ladies get all teacher-y on you. Here are my very favorite how-tos of the week that I'm just going to strongly suggest with stern eyebrows and pouty lips that you follow to the T.

How to fall in as much love with "The Hunger Games" the movie as the books - Friends, my mother has been all over me to read these freaking books even though I am not a science-fictiony type of reader-lady because she insists it will help me understand this generation. Since I've read nary a word of Harry Potter (GASP!) or Twilight (what the--?!), it's looking like I am stuck back somewhere in The Greatest Generation at this point. But reading Kristen Howerton's review of the costume-glorious "HG" movie over at Rage Against the Minivan actually made me stop ignoring my mother's literary pleas for ten minutes. If the movie is that good and I need to see the movie then clearly I have to first plow through the books. Plus, Kristen writes, "And the casting...oh my word." Frankly, anyone who says "oh my word" is a credible critic in my book, which is apparently now cracked open to page one of the effing Hunger Games.

How Michelle Obama can help us end all this misogynist right-wing bullshit - Let's be honest: The first lady is a giant star in the presidential crown. Super-smart Pundit Mom Joanne Bamberger outlines her ideal strategy for Michelle Obama to really shine in this election, pulling in women voters at a time when reproductive justice, health care, employment and other issues are too big and scary to ignore.

How to throw a minimalist birthday party for your kiddo - BostonMama's Christine Koh is inside my head on this one. I am all about letting the kid set a theme (which is sure to be something un-simple like Lego Tae Kwon Do Boogers) and choosing five elements to go along with it (favors, cake, activity, invites, balloons). Food is always the same Costco deliciousness. The time is always a weekend early afternoon. The guest list is never more than 10 kids. The end. And now on to Christine's awesome advice...

How to decide whether or not to have another kid - Two of my newest, coolest married folk (see? I'm not so bitter as to hate ALL married folk) are Serge Bielanko and Monica Bielanko. I love their He Said/She Saids. In this one, Monica's concern about another BooBoo Bielanko involves body explosions, southern-facing bewbs, and the obligatory minivan purchase. Serge is just worried about the cops. Click, read, watch.

March 09, 2012

We all know you're waiting for your Words With Friends games to update while "watching" your precious little boos do roundhouse kicks/score goals/learn backstroke/learn the fine art of comedic timing at a kiddie improv class. Take the break and click over to five of my very favorite reads of the week. Trust me, your Saturday (or Sunday or wee-hours Monday) will be better for it.

How to perfect red lips - This step-by-step post went up last week on BostonMamas for the lady (or gent, whatevs, I don't judge) who wants the perfect crimson pucker, but I can't stop thinking about it. Perhaps it is because I was JUST with post author Christine Koh at BlissDom and she excused herself from the lunch table to go freshen up her pout. And she said it all definitively and without invitation to further discuss -- "I'm going to go up to my room and reapply my red lipstick so it keeps looking fabulous" or something similar. And you know what? She did it. She did it UP. So I highly recommend following her lead and these steps so your red-print isn't all over your chin/shirt/hand/teeth/random lady on the bus.

How to make lip scrub - Allison at PetitElefant is stunning. Stun.Ning. So basically, I do whatever it is her Joan-Jett-coiffed phenomenally accessorized self tells me what to do. Now that you're treating your kisser to scarlet lipstick, be sure you also give it a little scrub with this DIY concoction that will bring out the sweet, natural pink.

On hating The Notebook- When Tracey at Sweetney wrote that she saw the movie and hated it, I felt her (I mean, not the actual HER, but her words...good Lord, you know what I mean...stop it). Why all this feeling? Because I hated the book. I also detested Bridges of Madison County. So there. But Tracey does a lot better job explaining the back-and-forth of Ryan Gosling/hot duder love and celluloid hate. I invite you to feel her, too.

I am a mother. But first I was just me - Remember that moment of relief and and fear exhilaration when your whole identity shifted into motherhood? Meagan Francis goes back to the moments and years before that to find what she needs now and in the future - more of the not-mom self. Read, nod, reflect.

Holyohhell, Angry Birds crafts - If you actually carry these out with your kids, you are a much better mother than I. More power and Play-Doh to you. This mama, the delightful Sarah James of Whoorl, also has time to lie to Ryan Seacrest and make a commericals, so you know, maybe we should all be crafting app characters.

March 06, 2012

It was a long night. Lil E, still recovering from an unknown virus that came and went with fever and vomitting all week, slept fitfully. I sang him back to sleep four times throughout the course of 8 hours. He woke up at 6 a.m., then again at 7. I told him to read for an hour. I felt like I'd only napped all night.

A little after 8, he crept into my room and slid this white-board next on to my pillow. He whisper-asked if he could watch TV and slid out again.

I could barely read it, my glasses on the nightstand and my eyes heavy. But I saw the words "love" and "pritty" and silly" just before I fell back asleep clutching it and smearing the word "fun" with my fingers.

"She rock-s!" he scribbled in pink.

All of it will fade soon enough. But he used the word "happy" to describe us. "Happy" after a long month of stress and inadvertent weight-loss and worry wrinkling in between my eyebrows. "Happy" after being up most of the night and being home most of the week and a virus that germy-ed up our home. "Happy" after things have changed around here in ways I can't yet fully explain so that we will be living more simply, so that the stress will be swept out slowly and methodically.

Happy.

The note ends with lines of Xs and Os, as we always end our letters and post-its and phone calls to each other. But I hope those stay there along with the happy-us, the dry -rase marker imprinting the wish for the words to stay long after the rest has been wiped from the board.

Happy Mommy. Happy Boy. Through tired eyes and swells of stress, that's what I want to see most.

March 03, 2012

While he definitely has his 15-year-old-girl moments of door slamming and eye-rolling and ignoring me out of sheer embarrasment that I am doing something drastic and horrifying like car-dancing to Rihanna, most of the time having a 7-year old boy is wonderful. Lil E is full of questions and sarcasm and quirkiness and sensitivity -- I love all of that about him. He's also full of words.

The boy can talk. And write. And read. He does all like he is devouring the space in front of him. Oh, how I relate.

Just like he does during his school day, we have quiet reading time at our house. He curls up on the couch or on his bed, paging through his kid encyclopedia or poring over a chapter book. It fills me up to see him there, deep inside the lines on the page.

I let him read during church -- books have always been a spiritual home for me -- and he's made his way through much of the Wimpy Kid series while we sing hymns and pray. Last weekend while I was at BlissDom, he packed up the books he'd finished to share with his dad. When he returned home, he told me his dad finished them quickly.

"I put them on your bed," he said. "So you can read them next and then we will all know what they are all about."

The world won't shift because of the Wimpy Kid books. But my son's life has. And he wants me to get that.

So Wimpy Kid it will be. They've pushed ahead of my Pema Chodron meditations and the discipline book my mom is dying for me to read and the Ann Patchett novel I began on the airplane. I like those books there, reminding me to be more patient when the teen angst slips out. This little boy's literary adventures are simple now, but so important. And just starting.

March 02, 2012

I'd never been to the Blissdom conference before, but this year, I just knew I had to get there.

I did the Responsible Grrrl thing, talking to my dad and the Not Boyfriend about whether I should attend a conference on my own -- in this case meaning that I'd be going without a woobie-friend to cling to and paying for it out of my own wallet.

"Why is this important?" they both asked when I told them I was weighing whether to make the trip to Nashville at the tail-end of an extraordinarily stressful month, on a limited budget, with no real idea what BlissDom was all about. I was relying on them to help me count the costs and so I didn't really expect this question from either of them.

"I need to be with my people," I said definitively.

Some of my people:

Tracey of Sweetney, Kyran, Katherine Stone, Meagan and me. Didn't Christine Koh do a great job capturing the happiness?

"Then, go," they both said. But me being me, I debated more. Even after the conference sold out and my budget got tighter and my concerns about switching visitation weekends amped up.

So I put out the feelers. Could I scrounge up a ticket? Could I hunt down an affordable airfare? Is there anyone who'd want to room with me?

And that's when the good advice from my dad and the Not Boyfriend and the universe colluded to get me to BlissDom. I asked one person if she knew of any extra conference passes for sale and within five minutes, she'd found me one. I proposed a weekend switch with The Ex and in a strangely civil two-minute conversation, had it all arranged. I logged on to two travel sites before I found an airfare for $135. I reached out to a few blogging ladies I am getting to know better and within moments, had an offer to share a room. Weeks of weighing it all, and the whole trip was set in twenty minutes. Tops.

Before I boarded the plane, my dad called me with one more bit of advice: "Don't force this to be something you think you need," he said. "Be open to it being whatever it is. You will hear something this weekend you need to hear, I know it."

A pause to note that my dad is a sage man who has a social-worker practicality and calm. But spiritual hoodoo-guruness is not normally his way. These words said by this man, though, were just one of many signs pointing me toward BlissDom.

He was right.

The opening keynote was by Jon Acuff, a man I may not have otherwise ever heard, who is so funny and on-point and very clearly loves speaking to groups of attentive blogging ladies. I am not even sure I could relay what exactly he said that made me tear up and clap and want to meet him in person (so worth the half-hour wait in line), but I knew that his keynote contained the words I needed to hear.

But there were more.

Some of those words came from Meagan Francis.I have known Meagan since the early days when we both contributed to Chicago Moms Blog. And when her book, The Happiest Mom, came out, I pored over her wise and funny words and was thrilled to interview her. But it wasn't until last summer when we shared margaritas poolside at BlogHer and I heard this mom of sixteen (OK, five) spit out gangsta rap lyrics that I knew we needed to be friends. So when she offered for me to room with her, I snapped up the chance. We immediately established a Circle of Trust so we could share secrets and ideas and brainstorms and brilliance and gossip and stupid texts like we've been roommates forever. This is one dynamic woman who very well may be my next woobie. Also, there are apparently photos of us club dancing, so I will have to keep her close in order to prevent those from being leaked.

Some of those words were spoken by Christine Koh.See this stunning lady in the J. Crew-fabulous outfit? She gave an inspiring on doing LESS as a life strategy. She also has a killer potty mouth. How could you not adore her? We shared a drink (she asked the bartender to make something up for her and within moments, he created a cocktail just for Christine called The Leg Spreader...just saying), some very deep and spiritual talk about death and taking professional chances and what makes great content online, and a burning desire to do karaoke (that never materialized, unfortch). I was so honored she included me in her own BlissDom round-up post and just hated to say goodbye to that mama. Christine feels like a kindred spirit and one day I am going to borrow that yellow pencil skirt and it won't be awkward at all.

Some of those words have yet to be written. But I have all the faith in the world that the book Christine is writing with the savvy Asha Dornfestwill bring a message I will need to hear. Christine and Asha announced at BlissDom that they're putting their Minimalist Parenting centeredness on to paper in a book due out next year. Don't you love it when smart ladies do smart things together? (Follow their good Minimalist Parenting works here.)

Taken at the American Cancer Society's More Birthdays booth.

They are doing amazing work and I loved adding my words to their campaign.

Some words were a long time coming -- in this case from the supahhh-smart Joanne Bamberger, also known as Pundit Mom. Our work has overlapped, but Joanne and I have never had a chance to just sit down and talk. Before this weekend, that is. Joanne is changing how women's votes and analysis and concerns and issues are being covered in this presidential election and I am in awe of how informed and real and empowering she is.

There was more good/naughty stuff after I declared to Mr. Lady that we WOULD be friends, and with the one person who did get plenty of time on the karaoke mic, Jim of BusyDadyBlog.I've known Steph from Adventures in Babywearing for a million years, but in a few days of seeing her light up a conversation with her sparkling eyes and devious smile, I felt like we became better friends.

And when Kyran Pittman took an inside joke and turned it into a Pinterest board...yeah, well...she sealed it. I am totally going to stalk her now. She may not even know that I am stealing words before she even says them, but I am. And scrapbooking them. With fancy stickers and glitter glue.

In a conversation about being brave and taking bold leaps, I felt a swell of tears and sisterhood with Laurie. And when Christine asked who I'd met who I would like to get to know better, I didn't hesitate in answering "Zakary." So, watch out, darling, I'm-a-coming over to be your next Facebook-besty.

Joe Jonas, wooing the lady-bloggers one final rose after another

AND OH.EM.GEE! How could I leave out Joe Jonas and Rascal Flatts? They were there. And we were SO CLOSE to them. OK, so we couldn't stop giggling when Joe Jonas thrust pelvically toward all the cougars in the audience and handed out final roses to screaming moms, he did earn some points for reportedly saying during photos that he would probably become "someone's stepfather" that night. Those big names were definitely outdone by a lunch-time performance by the snarky, so funny, still-humble Chris Mann from "The Voice". Watch and vote, friends, he's worth it.

Rascal...

and Flatts

...or however that works.

BlissDom is a lot of glitter and loving on people and coupon bloggers and workshopping and tears. All of that is wonderful to each attendee for different reasons. And not all of it is exactly what I need. But because there aren't big line-ups of A-listers there and many of my regular bloggy laydeeez were not in attendance, the pressure was off to see people and be seen and network hard and be at every exciting, exclusive party. Instead, I could just cover myself in as much glitter as I wanted and let the days and parties and little moments unfold.

I came home completely exhausted and with nothing much left to say. I'd been there, to the joyous pants-peeing gangsta-rapping non-karaokeing circle-of-trust listening and laughing place I needed to be. If only for three days. If only so I could return to this space in a better place. And I have.

February 23, 2012

I was on the Stair Master, sweating out stress I've accumulated for months, reminding my muscles how to work hard going nowhere on a machine, blasting Florence and the Machine through my ear buds, flipping through a magazine.

I was overstimulating myself into relaxing. It's a trick I play while I work out. If my mind is too quiet, I focus on each second that passes, each eighth of a mile I tick off. If there's music and magazines and maybe even the television, my mind eases into celebrity gossip and my body just does its work.

On this day, relaxing into my exercise was important. It has been an incredibly hard month and an especially dramatic week. I was using the Stair Master -- and baths and scrambled eggs and matzo ball soup and folding laundry -- in the same ways I use other modes of overstimulation. To let (my thoughts) go and (my legs, the stress) work itself out.

I climbed floor after floor on the stair treadmill. I imagined I was nearing the top of the Sears Tower as I flipped through recipes and deodorant comparisons and an interview with Kelly Ripa. Then there, right there on the very last page of the old SELF magazine I was skimming while I exercised, was something that fueled my carefully un-focused mind.

It was a small paragraph in a section called "A moment for yourself." Page 118.

Be a hill seeker

Most of us try to avoid hills, but what's so good about flat? Think about it: flat tires, flat hair, flat returns and - the ultimate - flatlining. Life happens on the hills. They're opportunities to prove to yourself that you're stronger than you ever imagined. If you never attempt the ascent, you'll never know the thrill of swooshing down the other side.

Of course, it's magazine-speak: your cheery girlfriend's cheery text that makes you cringe a little and also tear up at the sweetness and good intention. That doesn't matter, though. Just like that text (we've all gotten them at some point, right?), it spoke to me.

The Not Boyfriend, in his Buddhist ways spoken softly into the Skype screen with one raised eyebrow that always triggers my instinct to pull out a pen and take notes, reminds me often, "The obstacle is the journey."

In my own church, the congregation's voices rose up during Ash Wednesday services, saying also: Do not let us be so burdened by the pain of today that we lose faith in the glory that shall be revealed tomorrow.

All these words came to be in different ways but they are all on the same page. All telling me keep climbing. Each hill is its own exercise. Pumping blood, flexing muscles, shedding stresses, easing mind.

Stealing magazine and tucking that one centering page into the pocket of my purse.

December 14, 2011

At first, I wanted to put my giant, wonderfully clunky pink suede platform wedge heels right up on my desk somewhere in between the seven notebooks of to-do lists, three half-empty cups of coffee with puddles of sugar and cream at the bottom, and very disorganized-looking pile of thumb drives with a meticulous catalogued system of saving random things on them. I wanted to lean back and close my eyes for just a minute too long and then just stare back at my computer screen and nod knowingly. Yup, yup. That's what I'd be thinking.

Or I wanted to force out a few tears and thank God, my manager and all my mother's friends in the audience who read my blog.

September 13, 2011

Many emails from the Not Boyfriend are tagged with a saying that also is taped to his refigerator (right next to the calendar from August 2009). I've read it a thousand times. I have a feeling he'd say it is my journey to hear it a thousand more.

There are no Zen masters, there is only Zen.

But what the Not Boyfriend, with his shaved-head practice and divinely timed inbox and icebox reminders may not have known is that Zen is carefully built piece by interlocking piece, placed upon a glassy surface to rest delicately and float staunchly. Then smeared like a mofo with some kind of invisible shield of crazy glue.

At least this incarnation of the Lego lotus of enlightenment is. And in our house, when all else fails, we let go and Lego.

September 11, 2011

A decade ago, I sat on a train to downtown Chicago, having just seen the second plane hit the Twin Towers, listening to a very young woman wonder out loud why the airports were such a mess, why there was such chaos. I wanted to tell her what was happening in New York, but she'd just landed in my city from there. She had no idea. I couldn't be the one to tell her.

Hours later, my coworkers and I were nervously evacuating our building, a few short blocks from Sears Tower. We were afraid, like many others, it would be next to tumble. The streets were busy, people were confused, and so a kind coworker said she'd drive me home, not wanting to send me into the tunnels of train. The expressway was a calm, deep breath. It was empty, like everyone around it was waiting for the center of our city to implode next.

August 03, 2011

Last year, there was a big old Shine shabang at BlogHer and it was phenomenal to see the women lined up to share their own stories of transformation that became many, many inspirational videos for the You. Reinvented program. This year, I'll be there on my own -- no video crew, professional hosts, make-up artists and gorgeous white leather ottomans. As much as I will miss that spotlight shining down on dozens of women being filmed, I am so grateful to be fully present to meet up with women I know and only see a few times a year and to meet others for the very first time.

Here are the ladies who've made my checklist for BlogHer '11, just a few short hours away:

Mommyfriend's a sweetie-pie looking blond mama who really truly sang the words "punk ass trippin but it's alllllllllllriiiight" on a vlog post today. See now why we need to meet in person? Oh yeah, and when I texted her the first time, she sent me back a photo of a hot pair of red patent leather sandals and apologized profusely for her unpainted toes, which just means I will be running into her arms as soon as I spy her across the gigantor exhibit hall of squealing bloggy ladies.

Amy from Using Our Words is delightful, wise, and somehow wrangles two boys and baby girls with grace, laughter and enough time to actually leave comments on other bloggers' posts. Crazy, right? She is the mama with the good advice who isn't afraid to say screw it and host her own DIY daycamp in the backyard.

Lindsay from Suburban Turmoil and Clever Girl Cat from Wishbone Cloverand I saw a lot of sites together in New Orleans a few months ago at Mom 2.0. But it was when Lindsay leaned her pretty-dress self over a pirate bar with lots of uh-uh-uh music and video poker machines blaring and politely ordered us "three Purple Voodoo drinks...with extra voodoo, please!" that the very corners of the love triangle were sealed. I am not sure how much voodoo exists in San Diego, but I am quite sure that if Cat, Lindsay and I are ever alone together on cobblestone streets, we shall find it and drink as much of it as we can possibly ingest (which in the case of the New Orleans grape booze slushy, totalled about an inch each).

Lia from Mama Starting Over. As it goes, some of us become single mamas in the time between blogging conferences. After heart-to-heart IMs, emailed check-ins, and advice poured back and forth on Facebook, I am really looking forward to giving my lady Lia a wink and a smile in person.

Karen from Chookooloonks is a woman on a mission and I am sure she will be incredibly busy at BlogHer. But I loved connecting with her when we sat on a panel together at Mom 2.0 so much that I will be very happy just to wave at her from my seat ten rows away at a session where she is undoubtedly speaking again. Some women just make you want to be better by being around and I do think Karen's one of those ladies.

Charlene from CrazedParent.OK, this is a cheat because Charlene's been one of my closest bloggy lady friends practically since the beginning of all blog time. Also, I had dinner with her a couple of months ago and we've been on a texting frenzy this whole week. But it has been two years since I was at a conference with Char, lots has happened for both of since then, and I know we will rile up something fabulous or hilarious or completely life-changing or all three while we're there together.

June 13, 2011

I was digging through a box of old books at a garage sale last weekend when I spied this one, Cherry Ames: Dude Ranch Nurse. I know you won't be surprised that the name "Cherry" jumped out at me as quickly as that "oh, yeah, cowboy, I am indeed a bad lady all buttoned up in this stifling nurse's uniform" in her eye.I set it aside.

"Oh yeah," my mom explained, "Cherry Ames was a series of mystery books for girls. I read almost all of them growing up."

I put the book back. It was overpriced anyway. I didn't need overpriced and under-sexed. Nor did I need young adult literature from the '40s.

But when I looked into the adventures of Cherry Ames online, I found that she was a little more suspect that my mother made her seem. Apparently created in an effort to make nursing appeal to girls during war time, the Cherry Ames character was guided into her career by a kindly older gentleman (uh-hmmm), job-hopped from 1948-1963 (I see), remained single throughout her good works, with the exception of a few short-lived beaux like one Dr. "Lex" Upham (which just sounds dirty).

Cherry, short for Charity, got around in her caretaking duties. As 27 titles penned by two authors indicate, Cherry was a Student Nurse, Senior Nurse, Army Nurse, Chief Nurse, Veterans' Nurse, Flight Nurse, Camp Nurse, and Rural Nurse. She had some lapses in her ambition, plateauing a bit as Rest Home Nurse, Staff Nurse, Clinic Nurse, Companion Nurse and the confusing Department Store Nurse ("Help! Someone! My finger's been caught in the old-timey cash register! It won't stop dinging!"). To her credit, Cherry did have some wilder times as Jungle Nurse, Boarding School Nurse, Ski Nurse, Mountaineer Nurse, Cruise Nurse, Private Duty Nurse, Island Nurse, Night Supervisor and of course, during The Mystery in the Doctor's Office.

I wonder how many girls were inspired to grow up and become nurses due to hours spent curled up in a window seat reading Cherry Ames books, only to be deeply disappointed to learn no one would need them to figure out where the missing Oxycotin went or why Nice Mr. Hypochondriac died of a fake disease. I wonder if they looked at those covers the way I did and assumed they could lead risque lives of intrigue and neatly pressed uniforms and swarthy temporary boyfriends with names like (ahem) Lex. I wonder how many of them ended up hating poor Cherry, who seemingly never lived anywhere for long and for whom trouble and suspense seemed to follow her sensible, no-squeak white leather lace-ups.

About sex, marriage, uncoupling, introducing a kid to a new beau. And about Katie Holmes and the Housewives because...you know, all this other stuff is some heavy shit.

But it felt like time to do more.

Maybe it's because I no longer define myself as Divorced Lady. Or maybe it's I recently realized that even though the Ex is no longer a primary relationship in my life, I give him enough energy and emotion to make it appear that he is.

I've chosen since the day I left to put my son in the center, and I have. Now his needs are different, the situation is different, the way we all relate is different. So it's time to study up, to be hopeful there will be an ease in this still-tough situation that's been normal for a long time. It's time for it to be easy.

Perhaps that's what Lil E got when he read the title himself. Or was it that he simply saw me trying to make things better for him, the small child in the middle of a whole, big past? Whatever it was for him, the moment was powerful for me, too.

I opened the box, pulled the book from it. Lil E asked to see it. I held it in his direction and he took his time, carefully sounding out each word. Divorce was one word he read quickly, like he knew it deep in his consciousness well before he recognized sight words like cat and dog.

"Thank you, Mommy!" He said it enthusiastically. No sadness, no worry. Just happiness that I met him in the place where he clearly is -- or clearly was to me in that brief second.

I closed my eyes, nodded, smiled. I asked him to take it to my room. He grabbed it in his hands, sticky with something, so much dirt under the nails.

I found it later that night when I turned back the covers and adjusted the pillow. It was there, hidden half under my covers and half under the place where I rest my head, wrestle recurring nightmares, have worked so hard to sleep more, better, deeper. It was waiting for me.

Was it a thank you? A reminder? An intimate gesture of hope between a single mama and her sensitive boy?

I'm not sure yet. But I am reading. I promise to him and myself, I am reading.

April 30, 2011

I shouldn't be surprised that people find me most often by searching the f-word in combination with TV and shoes (nice combo, people) or terms like "Britney's vajayjay" (that so-2005 phrase haunts me still). But when I added approximately 18 letter Os to the word "boobs," I thought I'd knock myself out of the old knocker searches.

Not so much (this term, on the other hand, I will exhaust until this decade runs out).

I'm mostly impressed that there are people (are you one of them?...because it's totally OK if you are and I swear I will not tell too many other people) that are inflated with as many Os as I've chosen to include. I'm a little concerned that I've only ranked third among other people who've posted on the topic. But I do have to give a hat tip to you, Mr. Peter Im, who titled your post "Go From Boobs to BOOOOOOOBS" and won the (ahem) top spot in this particular search. Good for you, sir! I can't wait to start penning my Peeeeeeeeeeeeter post in your honor and win out over you with the audience who chose to really amp up their normal, everyday titular typing.

Welcome, I say to you, BOOOOOOOBS searchers! I hope you nestle right here, get cozy, feel snuggled up and taken care of and never, ever have to peck out that many Os again.

April 28, 2011

My mother called me this evening to ask if I'd have coffee on at 5 a.m. when she comes over...you know, for that Flip Cam-videoed chapel wedding on some indie cable station. All I could think was, "HOW COULD SHE NOT KNOW THE ROYAL WEDDING AIRS AT 3 A.M.??!"

For the love of the Queen Mum, moth-errrr. Gaw. Of course, there will be coffee. And scones. Warm ones with homemade jam.

(OK, there will be however many Wheat Thins are left in the bottom of the box and the corner of butter that's caked in bagel crumbs.)

Then, because she thinks she is the ultimate smart ass with an extra bonus of hi.lar.ity, she said she was kidding. Or rather, she said, "Oh, I'm just calling to give you shit because you're so into this whole thing." This devastating blow was followed by a muffled comment and laughter, presumably with raised eyebrows or a wink and accompanied by my father, who was in on the joke without ever looking up from his crossword puzzle or Mother Jones magazine.

Betrayal!

"Hey, lady," I said, because it's always proper to address your own matriarch that way when she's fucking with you about important things like a commoner -- beautiful but still, a commoner -- who wore a sheer dress in a fashion show to capture her prince's heart, "you know I will be watching and you know you want to come over and watch it with me."

Silence.

"Admit it."

"Oh, I admit," she fessed up. "I do want to see it. Kind of. I mean, I would if you invited me and really, really, really wanted me to watch it with you. But ummmm, your dad thinks it's dumb."

"YOU ARE INVITED! And he is a man."

The conversation ended there. What more was there to say? These are the truisms of the middle-of-the-night nuptial viewing, like morning coats and child attendants in knickers and turning a Kate into a Catherine. It is, lovelies, what it is.

A tiny "ahem" followed a few seconds later. She will be sorry. For at least twenty minutes until the whole damn thing reruns 47 times in a row on the Oxygen network or similar.

The truth is that I am not at all obsessed with the wedding. But I am paying attention like it's my job. Why? Because it is, in part, my job. While Shine is covering the Royal Wedding extensively to contribute to Yahoo's Royal Wedding site, we discuss every little detail that can be scratched up about it -- from Legos fashioned after the couple to a hunt for the suspected bridal nail polish to Pippa's smokin' hot date -- on our editorial calls every single day. I have to admit, it's kind of tricky to be neutral when I'm reading enough posts about commemorative tea bags to compete with the number of issues of Martha Stewart Weddings and bridal binders I maintained for my own long-ago tulle-and-carriage affair (in case you only know me as a divorced lady, know that = a lot).

Even though my mom will be heading to bed just about the time I watch William catch his first glimpse of Kate, I will be watching. Pheasant feather fascinator bobbing as I sob at the beauty and ridiculousness of the whole damn rich white people fairy tale.

You are totally welcome to join me. Especially if you bring a big box of scones.

Just to prep, here's a clip from my appearance on 7Live, the ABC affiliate in San Francisco, where I was invited to dish about the non-traditional aspects of this classic event. Lace up your spectator shoes and enjoy.

April 27, 2011

Once upon a time, in the dark ages of blogging, I was completely convinced that my parents would never, ever understand my career as a blogger. If the job didn't come with a 401(K) (which it didn't at the time) and involved lots of highly academic pontificating and snark about Britney Spears (which it did at the time), then they just shook their heads as if they were trying desperately to come out of some bewildered haze to support their curiously employed daughter.

And now, here we are, more than five years later -- FIVE YEARS?! Good God, I am a dinosaur! I am the triceratops of the Real Housewives-and-periods period of digital content! I have a bony frill constructed entirely out of high-fructose corn syrup rants! I was trained on CMS tools that are now fossilized! My first blogging uniform was made out of sabertooth skins! I paid the sitter the same number of bones I earned for railing on plant-eater mommies! I am the cockroach of polls on boob topics! I survived mobile posting on a Motorola Razr and raw meat! (OK, I've officially exhausted the theme, I know.) -- and my parents get it. I mean, they can't figure out how turn on the sound on their computer, but dammit, they can talk the talk. My dad can discuss traffic with the best of them. My mom tutors her retired friends on how to Google my ass (oh please, Goddess of All Rolls of Film Drunkenly Taken After Old English Power Hours, please let those bare ass college pictures be hundreds of pages into a search on my name). Sure, they think I am famous on par with Bethenny Frankel, but we will just let them run with that in lieu of the retirement savings and gold watch path to fame and fortune.

They've come a long way, and they've come a long way with me, especially in these last few months.

I've been working at Shine for three years, momentous because I was there when it launched and it because it is the longest I've ever been at one job in my whole professional life. That includes many freelance stops along the inter-highway, academia, the special hell of nonprofit fundraising, the stint as a personal biographer, the very long summer teaching small children art, lifeguarding, nannying, and being a receptionist at an engineering firm. No job has lasted like this one.

No job has made me more furious, more excited, more honest about what I can offer and where I want my life to go. It sounds crazy, but in the deepest and darkest and most horribly stressful moments at Shine, I learned a lot about how much professional endurance I have. I also learned what I am really good at, what I am not so hot at, what I don't have patience for, what I am too old or experienced or wise to do, what I can buck up and get humble and do anyway, what I have to learn and what I want to learn. I've stretched.

While all that happened, there were tons of changes on the site and staff and hard just sometimes got harder. Then something divine happened -- I got happy. Really, really happy.

So when I shared with my parents in December how my job was evolving in the New Year, I cried. They were tears of joy, and my parents got it. Today, I am working my ass off as a senior editor, overseeing our Parenting and Healthy Living channels and tasked with pushing our Community & Social Outreach forward. Really, that all means I get to focus on every little thing I love to write about and interact with all the people -- bloggers, PR folk, brands -- I want to work with most, not only on Shine but at conferences, events, on Facebook and Twitter. It's completely thrilling.

Perhaps most importantly, I am really proud of what I do, of what we're doing on this site. The staff is so talented and every day, I really do feel pushed to do more and be more. Smarter. Funnier. More efficient. Better. That pressure, I am reminded by a sticky note attached to the Not Boyfriend's tidy little Mac, is a privilege.

What I do there, spills over here. I am crafting big plans for Sassafrass that will hold tightly to the spirit I put in the very first post a million years ago. It also means that I am really going to try to make time, to make a commitment to be here more often, to put some of that ambition and endurance and hard effing work into making this site more than it has been. And I am also, in increments of time and cash exactly equivalent to enough co-pays to send my therapist on one more Mediterranean Carnival cruise, working to reframe that as a gift rather than one more utterly exhausting to-do.

To help us all keep the faith, here are a few of the conversations I've lit up on Shine lately:

"Hmmm. You tell me what it means," I said, employing that tactic parents generations back have used on kids who know exactly what they're being lured in to pretty much from the womb on. It's a strategy to see where your kids stands on multiplication tables, French vocabulary, what Eminem lyrics really mean, the Tooth Fairy and whether homework has been done.

Or in this case, where the piles of toys end up.

"It means," he said all official-like, "that you DON'T just put your toys in a pile underneath your bed when your mommy tells you to put them away."

The definition was different than the one his buddy's mom texted me. But for this six-year old, it was dead on.The real truth, though, came in the look that followed.

It was the "no, no, no...I've got this one" look -- raised eyebrow, smug smile, that pause when the onlooker is convinced a little condescending wink will follow but then PADOW! in the final milliseconds, the most innocent, ear-to-ear award-winning grin. You know those smiles, the ones that get auditioning kids cereal commercials and get small children on to viral videos when they've done some major damage to a house or baby sister with Mommy's favorite MAC lipstick and the only object of discernible monetary value in the whole house. It was one of those.

It was, I only know now because I've falled in for it a gazillion times already, to tell me he'd never, ever cheat when he was supposed to be putting toys away. Noooooo. Not him. Not my boy. I mean, look at that smile.

Oh no, my child had the right answer. According to that almost-persuasive and well-practiced look, he also has oodles of integrity. And he also still has a ton of crap shoved under his bed.